10th Anniversary Special Issue — Call for Papers

The Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment (CAPSI) marks a decade of rigorous scholarship at the intersection of wealth, generosity, and African self-determination. This anniversary special issue of the International Review of Philanthropy and Social Investment (IRPSI) does not merely celebrate that decade — it advances beyond it. Guided by CAPSI's 2025–2027 Strategic Plan, this issue proposes a fundamental reorientation of the field: from the study of charity as a compensatory mechanism for underdevelopment, toward the study of strategic social investment as an instrument of sovereign wealth creation, institutional transformation, and continental economic architecture.

The critical epistemological question this issue poses is one that the philanthropy literature has, until recently, been reluctant to ask: what does genuine African economic sovereignty look like, and what role do philanthropy, social investment, and the mobilisation of domestic resources play in building it? The answers require us to move beyond the donor-recipient paradigm that has long structured discourse on African development finance, and to engage seriously with the new frameworks — institutional, technological, and monetary — through which Africa's own resources can be retained, circulated, and compounded within the continent.

To that end, this special issue introduces, as a foundational conceptual frame, the emerging architecture of Resource-Based Monetary Systems — a school of thought that re-examines Africa's vast natural endowments not merely as commodity exports subject to external price-setting, but as potential foundations for domestic liquidity, currency backing, and monetary independence.

The central question of this issue: How can Africa's philanthropic, social investment, and resource mobilisation systems be redesigned — institutionally, technologically, and monetarily — to build enduring sovereign wealth rather than managing persistent dependency? And what analytical frameworks, empirical evidence, and policy architectures does that redesign require?

The 2020s have produced a convergence of structural pressures and structural opportunities that make this the decisive decade for African economic agency. External debt burdens, currency fragility, commodity price volatility, and the persistent failure of aid-dependent development models on one hand; the demographic dividend, the digital infrastructure revolution, the emergence of BRICS+ payment architectures, and an unprecedented mobilisation of African high-net-worth capital and diaspora investment on the other. The philanthropy and social investment field sits at the centre of this tension — and this issue invites scholarship that engages it with full empirical and theoretical rigour.

We are particularly interested in work that interrogates the following structural conditions shaping the field in this decade: the growing volume of African domestic philanthropic capital relative to foreign aid flows; the emergence of new financial technologies that enable transparent, fractionable, and trackable social investment at scale; the regulatory evolution of ESG and impact investment frameworks across African jurisdictions; the geopolitical shifts that are creating space for new monetary architectures and intra-African trade settlement systems; and the generational transition in leadership of African civil society, private sector, and public institutions that is reshaping the values, instruments, and ambitions of social investment.

We invite original research articles, critical theoretical contributions, empirical case studies, policy analyses, and interdisciplinary reviews across the following four thematic pillars. Submissions addressing intersections between pillars are especially welcome.

Pillar One — Philanthropy, Strategic Social Investment, and the Architecture of African Capital

1. Beyond sporadic giving: frameworks for institutionalised, long-term philanthropic capital allocation in African infrastructure, education, and health systems
2. High-net-worth philanthropy in Africa: motivations, instruments, governance models, and impact measurement at scale
3. Diaspora remittances and diaspora bonds: reconceptualising diaspora financial flows as structured social investment rather than household transfers
4. The private sector as development architect: new models of CSR and ESG that centre African agency, reduce conditionality, and align with sovereign development priorities
5. Foundations, family offices, and institutional philanthropy: the emerging ecosystem of African domestic giving and its governance architecture
6. Impact investment and blended finance: mobilising private capital for social returns without replicating aid dependency
7. Evaluation, accountability, and the measurement of social return on investment in African contexts

Pillar Two — Resource-Based Monetary Sovereignty and Wealth Architecture

1. The Metanomic framework: re-valuing Africa's mineral, agricultural, and land endowments as foundations for monetary sovereignty and domestic liquidity creation
2. Gold, minerals, and commodity-backed currencies: historical precedents, contemporary feasibility, and institutional design requirements
3. Asset tokenisation and distributed ledger technologies: fractionalising resource ownership to broaden domestic participation in resource wealth
4. Sovereign wealth funds and natural resource revenue management: African models, governance challenges, and the fiscal-monetary interface
5. The “Rich in Resources, Poor in Liquidity” paradox: analytical frameworks and policy architectures for resolving Africa's resource-wealth paradox
6. Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) and intra-African trade finance: building the infrastructure of monetary integration
7. BRICS+ and the post-petrodollar order: implications for African monetary policy, reserve management, and development finance

Pillar Three — Technology, Digital Infrastructure, and the Future of Social Investment

1. Artificial intelligence and machine learning in philanthropy: ecosystem mapping, beneficiary identification, grant optimisation, and fraud detection
2. Digital public infrastructure — interoperable payment systems, digital identity, and open data — as the foundation for transparent, accountable social investment at scale
3. Fintech and mobile money as social investment vehicles: evidence on financial inclusion, household resilience, and community wealth building
4. Blockchain applications in philanthropy and social investment: smart contracts, transparent fund flows, and donor accountability
5. The digital transformation of African civil society: platforms, networks, and the organisational architecture of digital-era philanthropy
6. Data governance and privacy in AI-driven social investment: ethical frameworks for the collection, use, and protection of beneficiary data

Pillar Four — Inclusion, Generational Sovereignty, and the Social Investment Ecosystem

1. Women-led philanthropy and social investment in Africa: capital mobilisation, investment philosophy, and systemic impact
2. Youth entrepreneurship and the demographic dividend: investment models that harness Africa's generational asset rather than treating it as a demographic challenge
3. Grassroots and community-based giving: from informal rotating savings associations (tontines, susus, chamas) to institutionalised community social investment vehicles
4. Decolonising the measurement of philanthropic impact: epistemological critique of Western impact frameworks and development of African-grounded evaluation methodologies
5. Faith-based philanthropy and zakat/tithe mobilisation: the institutional infrastructure and economic scale of religious social investment in Africa
6. Philanthropy and post-conflict reconstruction: social investment in resilience, reconciliation, and the rebuilding of community capital
7. Climate and philanthropy: mobilising African philanthropic and social investment capital for climate adaptation, resilience, and a just energy transition; climate finance architectures that centre African agency and prioritise communities on the frontlines of climate risk
8. Youth, women and philanthropy: the intersection of generational and gendered agency in African social investment; capital pipelines, leadership pathways, and the institutional design of inclusive giving ecosystems
9. Next Generation Giving: the values, instruments, and institutional vehicles of inter-generational wealth transfer; new donor archetypes across African high-net-worth families, diaspora communities, and digitally-native givers; and the reshaping of family offices, foundations, and giving circles for the decade ahead

Types of contribution

We welcome the following contribution types; all subject to double-blind peer review:

1. Original research articles: 6,000–9,000 words, presenting new empirical findings or original theoretical contributions
2. Policy analyses: 4,000–6,000 words, providing evidence-based analysis of specific policy instruments, institutional frameworks, or regulatory environments
3. Critical reviews: 5,000–7,000 words, providing systematic or narrative reviews of a sub-field with an original analytical framework
4. Case studies: 4,000–6,000 words, documenting and analysing specific initiatives, institutions, or interventions with clear implications for the broader field
5. Conceptual contributions: 3,000–5,000 words, advancing new theoretical frameworks, definitional clarifications, or methodological proposals

Submission standards

1. All submissions must be original, unpublished work not currently under review elsewhere
2. Manuscripts should follow the IRPSI Author Guidelines available at the submission portal of the journal: https://www.irpsi.com/
3. Abstracts of 200–250 words and five to seven keywords are required for all submissions
4. Authors should prepare their manuscripts for double-blind review: no identifying information in the main document
5. Empirical submissions should include full methodological transparency and, where applicable, data availability statements
6. Interdisciplinary work drawing on economics, sociology, political science, law, and African studies is strongly encouraged

Submission portal

Submit via the IRPSI Manuscript Management System: https://www.irpsi.com/

Please indicate in your cover letter: IRPSI 10th Anniversary Special Issue.

Authors should note that the guest editors are committed to rigorous but efficient peer review. All manuscripts will receive substantive editorial feedback irrespective of final decision. The guest editors will endeavour to identify reviewers with specific expertise in African philanthropy, social investment, and resource economics, prioritising reviewers from African institutions.

Ten years ago, the founding editors of IRPSI asked what it would mean to take African philanthropy seriously as a field of scholarship. The answers that decade produced — rigorous, empirically grounded, institutionally engaged — have changed the conversation. This anniversary issue asks the next question: what does it mean to take African economic sovereignty seriously? Not as aspiration, but as architecture. Not as a critique of what has failed, but as a specification of what must be built.

We invite scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and institutional actors from across the continent and the diaspora to contribute to this conversation. The quality of the work this issue produces will be measured not only by its methodological rigour — though that is non-negotiable — but by its willingness to ask questions that have not yet been fully posed, and to propose architectures that have not yet been fully imagined.

Africa does not lack resources. It does not lack knowledge. It does not lack the will to chart its own course. What it requires — and what this issue is designed to provide — is the intellectual architecture to do so with precision, evidence, and sovereign confidence.

Imhotep Paul Alagidede | Simeon Coleman | Bheki Moyo | Keratiloe Mogotsi | Gloria Bob-Milliar
Guest Editors, IRPSI 10th Anniversary Special Issue